FAQ > Courses
Here you will be able to find out about our Courses, including age requirements for courses, materials required for specific courses, and how to apply for a new course.
A. Your child can take a variety of courses at the same time, or focus on one course. In order to add a new course, you will need to update your Learning Plan. For more information, refer to the answer of this question below.
To view all of the courses at GSA, you can visit the Courses page for more information.
A. ELA Standard is our English Language Arts course that is targeted for beginner learners and desire to build basic skills of English. For more information on ELA Standard, click here for more information.
ELA Advanced is our English Language Arts course that is targeted for learners who have already built the necessary basic English skills and will move on to develop advanced skills such as speaking, phonics, reading comprehension, critical thinking, problem solving, and more. For more information on ELA Advanced, click here for more information.
A. For both ELA Standard and ELA Advanced programs, there are Levels and Grades that determines where your child is at based on their skill level.
ELA Standard Levels
ELA Standard is our beginner program that focuses on students who may have some or little English learning experience, students who have some skills but requires additional focus on a particular skill, or students who have never studied English at all. This program is primarily focused on students who are starting off learning English as a second language.
ELA Standard K
This program aims at having students practice essential speaking skills, strengthening their listening skills with English exposure, and learning English vocabulary through image association, call-and-response methods, and fun engaging games.
ELA Standard: Rookie Program
The Rookie Program aims for students to begin learning English using ELA Standard Level 1 lessons paired with our Phonics Bootcamp. Students will take alternating ELA Standard lessons where they will use their Our World textbook, and then a Phonics Bootcamp lesson which they will not need to use their textbook. This program revolves around strengthening student's phonics skills to build a core, 4-skill foundation.
ELA Standard: Level 1
Students who begin at Level 1 will focus on building a strong structure of the English language as they take lessons that alternate between vocabulary building, grammar composition, reading, and constructing proper English speaking skills. Students may take supplementary bootcamps if they wish to help support their lessons, such as Speaking and Listening Bootcamp or Phonics Bootcamp.
ELA Standard: Level 2
Level 2 students will have a good foundation of reading and phonics, and will continue learning how to enhance their speaking and listening ability by learning how to make complex sentences. Level 2 students will be starting to dissociate from memorized English and instead start to utilize their English skill to provide organic sentences. Students are also encouraged to take up our Speaking Course to further enhance their discussion and conversational speaking skills with other students. Depending on the student's learning progression, some students who graduate from ELA Standard Level 2 may be able to transfer into ELA Advanced.
ELA Standard: Level 3
Students in Level 3 will have advanced reading skills and reading comprehension. Students in this level will be challenged to articulate thoughts and express critical and analytical thinking for the complex passages that they read.
ELA Advanced Levels
ELA Advanced is our advanced program that focuses on students who have had some English experience in the past, are going or have gone to an English-speaking international school, have lived/are living abroad, or are fluent English speakers and are continuing their English Language Arts study.
ELA Advanced K
Students in ELA Advanced K have already had past English learning experience and are continuing to build their core English skills. In the Advanced K level, students will be working on improving reading and writing skills, pronunciation and phonics, and building vocabulary for everyday use.
ELA Advanced Grade 1
Students in Grade 1 will have a good grasp on basic reading skills, grammar, and expressing themselves organically. In this grade, students will focus on furthering their grammar skills such as using past/present/future tense, noun/verb agreement, and writing paragraphs.
ELA Advanced Grade 2
Students in Grade 2 focus on advancing their reading comprehension and learning intermediate grammar, such as antonyms, synonyms, adverbs, subjects, predicates, complete and incomplete sentences, executable statements and sentence composition. Students will also learn how to begin mastering using English as a conversational tool that they can use with other English speaking individuals.
ELA Advanced Grade 3
Students in Grade 3 will be diving into reading texts from both fiction and non-fiction books and breaking down each text for further comprehension practice. Students will also be learning how to gather specific information from written text to analyze in-depth information, as well as checking correct usage of problematic homophones, practicing everyday idioms, mastering difficult vocabulary, and strengthening their speaking ability to use in everyday situations.
A. You can apply for courses in GSA when you update your Learning Plan.
Please note that applying for specific courses will depend on the level of your child.
To add or change courses, please see the steps below:
A. Our Story Time course is a private one-to-one class in which a GSA teacher reads a story to one student and discusses the story with the student. The Story Time course is 100 coins per class.
Story Time Live is one of our live programs in which a GSA teacher conducts a virtual book reading to an audience without verbal student interaction. While Story Time is a paid class, Story Time Live is free and available to all GSA students.